Monthly Archives: September 2011

We’ve been back in Bristol now for a few weeks and it’s as if I never left. It’s funny whatever it is that makes a place feel like “home” but Bristol has that magic for me.

It’s a city like any other with all the good and bad that a city offers but it has the extra dimension of being brilliant for musicians – tons of gigs at every end of the scale from open mics to concerts. Plus it has so much green space and parks and is easy to drive out of into the countryside in minutes.

On Saturday we went to Halesowen near Birmingham to support a sabar drumming workshop (we play the chols which are the bass drums – similar to the use of dunduns with djembe). Here’s a link to a video of one of the tracks the group was learning.

If you go out in Bristol without a plan you can guarantee to find something amazing or interesting to do. This weekend was Brisfest and we went down to the docks on Sunday afternoon and started walking about. We walked all along the river Avon back towards the Centre – we saw amazing Dragon boat racing, we popped into the new M-shed Museum of Bristol (completely free), from the roof terrace we watched down across the river and could hear the music from the festival across the way and had a great day out. In the evening we went to see our friend’s band Boxcar Aldous Huxley (as whacky as their name).

I’ve caught up with friends, been out to dinner, had friends round to dinner, seen my mum had people to stay and twice a week been back in the studio.

I’d been wanting to start my second album for the last couple of years but just couldn’t seem to motivate myself. I’m one of those people who’s a hundred times more productive when I’m busy and haven’t got time for anything – time seems to stretch and I get so much more done. Don’t ask me why or how but it’s just the way I am!!

I even feel like writing my blog again – wow!! Not to mention playing tennis twice a week again.

I haven’t blogged as I’ve been ridiculously busy and also we went away in the van for 10 days in the middle of all the moving! We went on a wonderful round trip starting with 4 days drumming in Suffolk, then walking the North Norfolk coast, on to a nostalgic (for P) trip to Pinchbeck and Spalding in Lincolnshire and then home via Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. What a beautiful country we live in with so much variety of countryside and wildlife as well as pretty villages and interesting towns.

Now it’s time to knuckle down here, sort out the house and for me, be back in touch with old friends and my mother and of course, to get cracking on recording my second album. This weekend a friend’s holding a welcome to Bristol evening tonight and then life back in Bristol will start properly…………………